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Home , 1975 12 Hours of Sebring, 6 Hours of Vallelunga, Allan Moffat, Brian Redman, Circuit de la Sarthe, Harald Grohs

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Sam Posey's BMW days.. .and nights The sole American on BMW's legendary IMSA team of 1975, brought talent and charisma to the campaign.

By William Edgar Photography by Willlam Edgar, courtesy BMW NA

mong BMW fans, Sam Posey may have gained his biggest fame rac- ing BMW's so-called "Batmobile" CSL coupes during the mid-1970s, but Posey is far more than just a racing driver. He's a man of remarkable versatility and expres- sion, traits that began in a youthful gift for words and art, and which took form, from adolescence on, in an escalating love of cars. His earliest, a home-built coaster named for a Connecticut lake edging the family estate, gave Sam hsfirst grasp of wheeled control and . What he called "The Mudge Pond Express" would serve again years later as the title for his stunning autobiography. Posey's candid book reveals an ungainly, overweight lad of patrician privilege who discovers both discipline and joy in the unlikely and perilous world of motor racing. Its pages have long delighted readers with his motorsport experiences, transporting them through the years from next-door Lime Rock to more distant Watkins Glen, Nassau, Sebring, Indianapolis, far-off Australia and . Its chapters end where this story begins, at , the South African grand , prix circuit to which Sam was summoned to test for what would become not only a sem- 7 inal step in his driving career, but an auspi- h cious American debut for BMW racing. To put BMW on the North American map, Motorsport brought over its ETCC- winning CSLs and readied them for IMSA competition in 1975. [See Bimmer #3l for the full story of the lMSA CSLs.] To drive them, team boss assembled a h quartet of drivers with true track talent and charisma-fiery Bavarian Hans-Joachim Stuck, persistent Brit , Swedish idol and Connecticut Yankee Samuel Felton Posey.

Bimmer AUGUST 2006 101 he recalls gravely. "So here I am, really rat- tled, I must admit-but I immediately felt comfortable in the race car. My third or fourth lap was actually pretty competitive. That made quite an impression on Neerpasch because, obviously, I couldn't have any sort of secret prior knowledge of anything about the CSL or the track. I just had to pull it out of my gut." What Sam would learn about the CSL was that, rather than drive smoothly he had to go flat out, up to 200 mph, sliding at extreme angles, braking fiercely-taking advantage of the anti-lock brake system that no other race cars had at the time. Neerpasch, today retired in the south of , remembers Posey back then. "Sam fit very well in the whole team, and this was important for us, the personality of the driver? Eager to be part of it all, Posey signed a driving contract with BMW. In January 1975, two Mercedes transporters and a truck hauled Neerpasch's "American Team" from "I was on a mission.. ." Posey's BMW saga began in November its headquarters in racer 's Looking back on that 1975 Bimmer year, 1974, when the 30-year-old flew from Phoenix Alabama shop to Florida, where the BMW Posey recalls having been "a bit on a mis- to Johannesburg to try out for Neerpasch. show would debut at Daytona's 24 Hour sion." Ten years into a roadracing career in Arriving in the middle of the night, Posey race. The all-inclusive operation involved a which he'd already proven himself in Can- managed only a little sleep before driving pair of CSL racecars, four international driv- Am, Trans-Am and , Posey was Kyalami's unfamiliar circuit. He was further ers, five mechanics, two engineers and tons determined to do well with BMW in the disquieted by the death there of his friend of spares and support equipment. IMSA Camel GT series. "At that point," he Peter Revson seven months earlier. Up on the Daytona banking these box% says, "I needed the ride to boost my career." "I spotted where Peter had met his end," winged racing coupes from Deutschland

102 AUGUST 2006 Bimmer struck an unforgettable pose. No less impres- pulled four-hour stints. Posey would start tearing around, and actually I was tearing sive were the uniformed BMW team driv- the race in the #24 BMW (s/n 2275988) and around pretty well, too." ers-Peterson, Posey, Redman, Stuck. Peterson the #25 (probably s/n 2275985); On lap 28 and for the next eight hours the As then-IMSA president John Bishop Posey was teamed with Stuck whde Peterson PoseyIStuck CSL led the race, the recalls, "Interwoven throughout our existence and Redman shared the #25. PetersonIRedman CSL having lasted only 29 at IMSA, we were always trying to find some "For me as a youngster going to the laps. At midnight, Sam pulled in for fuel and competition for the . It made it look States," says , "to meet up with a Hans took the seat. Soaked in perspiration, like we were anti-Porsche, and that got writ- guy like Sam Posey was very exciting. We had Posey reported the best of conditions to ten up a lot. Having a company like BMW our shakedown and testing in Daytona, and Neerpasch. It felt like victory. come in, of course, was really something." because Sam was the only one who knew the "It was one of those miraculous races track, Martin Braungart, the chief engineer where nobody can catch you," Posey relates, "We were going to win.. ." from BMW, sent him out first. After three laps the euphoria still evident. "It felt terrific on BMW qualified second and third on Sam came back, and Martin asked him, 'Is the banking, great to zoom around lesser Daytona's grid of 51 starters, bettered only everything fine? How are the temperatures?' cars. I was enjoying the team and they were by the potent Greenwood Corvette. Winning And Sam said, 'Yes. Everything is fine. Water enjoying me. We had the thing completely the Florida endurance race would be a bril- is only one hundred-thirty. Oil is only one wrapped up.. .when the crank broke." Hans liant payoff for all the planning and effort hundred-eighty.' But this, of course, was coasted in, done. Neerpasch put into his CSL program. Celsius-the car had Celsius gauges. Sam was Sam remembers the inlinesix's engine and Neerpasch had won Daytona driving a 907 thinking everything was fine, but the thing crankshaft, "It was very long and when you Porsche with in 1968heknew was already boiling like hell!" rewed it up it got a kind of sine curveit did- the 24 Hour and how to do it. The past and Posey adds, "It was pretty hard not to hit n't stay level on the bearings. We were run- present were in Jochen's big notebook, it off with Hans Stuck. He was just a won- ning more rpm than they had the year before. always carried with him. derful character. And, of course, I was The car was breathing better and, with the Driver changes would be every two and extremely lucky to be paired with him, higher rpm, the crank couldn't take it." a half hours, keeping minds and muscles because he was obviously the sort of favored fresh while other teams more typically son. If there was anything good to be had it "I just didn't want to screw up.. ." was going to be on our car, and he was going The #24 CSL retired with a three-lap lead (Opposite, top) Sam Posey caught In a reflee to be the quickest guy-and I was just going in the race's tenth hour. In the end, Porsche tlve mood at MldOhlo In July 1971 durlng to do a good steady job and we were going had its way at Daytona. Reigning IMSA the Formula 5000 race weekend. (Below) Posey to win. And that's exactly what was happen- champ Peter Gregg, driving a Brumos and the #24 CSL at Rlvenlde, lett, and at his ing about halfway into the Daytona race: We Carrera RSR with , won home track of Ume Rock, right, both 1975. were miles ahead of anybody, with Hans overall. For BMW, improved connecting rods

Bimmer AUGUST 2006 103 and a switch from pliant Goodyears to stiffer ing RedmanIMoffat CSL #25. Posey com- "I thought it was appropriate Dunlops were in order for the season's next ments: "Around three in the afternoon, Hans to wreck the car.. ." race, the . went in, did a stint, then I did a stint. I Posey's bliss would soon succumb, as he There, Neerpasch ordered Stuck and remember mine was at sunset, and I had to recalls with his characteristically prickly wit. Posey to set a pace that would be fast enough be very careful because the lighting is tricky "I thought it was appropriate to wreck the to break the while Redman and there, and some of the campfire smoke was Sebring-winning car-as fast as possible! In Australian , subbing for drifting across the track-I just didn't want the esses at I managed to accom- Peterson because this was a non-FIA race, to screw up, because at that point we were plish just that." Though it was a failure of cruised to the win. Hans, whose method was way ahead. Then Brian took back over and steering, not driver, "It demolished the car." to correct fast slides with jabs at the wheel, drove the rest of the way. That's my recollec- Posey didn't have another decent drive chopped five seconds off the Sebring record tion, that he did this phenomenal job and until Riverside. There, running a fully locked and won pole. basically won the race single-handedly." rear end to reduce wheelspin exiting comers, In the race, says Sam, "It was really a With all four drivers having time in the he shared his CSL with Redman for the May question of trying to get Peter Gregg. The winning car, each celebrated the Sebring 10th 6-Hour enduro. At mid-race, Sam had

first couple of turns he was faster and his overall victory and first in class. But it nearly Posey raced the Alexander Calde+palnted Porsche was much handier. So Hans went didn't happened. Art Car at Le Mans in 1975. (Above) A crowd first, and when he was finished with his "To my horror," Redman recalls, who'd gathers around the CSL outside the stables stint, I came out of the pit just ahead of Peter. already had battery problems that forced at the castle used as team headquarters that What I was trying to do was lead him off into him to run without lights wherever race offi- year. (Right) Posey in the Esses at Le Mans. trouble--somehow. I noticed that he was fol- cials wouldn't notice, "about twenty minutes lowing me, that he was taking his cues right from the end of the race the oil temperature behind me. So I braked and turned in late, gauge for the rear axle went off the clock! So to crouch at the wheel and hand-work a bro- and he went wide and over the curbs and I slowed right down. Tears came to my ken throttle cable. "There were setbacks that wrecked his car. I literally 'dusted him off!' I eyes-I can tell you." put us out of range," he notes academically, think that was a much-unsung moment, Despite a failed rear axle bearing, Brian recalling that repair. frankly, but feel very proud of my contribu- managed the win three laps ahead of the "But with about an hour and a half to go, tion to our win." It was lap 50, and the runner-up Porsche RSR. Jochen Neerpasch Brian was installed. It was night, and he GreggIHaywood Porsche was down and and his CSL team were over the moon. Of started to just flat fly. He demolished a lap out. Still, the battle continued. the first 17 finishers, no fewer than 14 wore record and set new ones, and was catching When Posey and Stuck's "hare" finally Porsche badges. Says Sam, "I'm standing on the leader, Hans Stuck, paired with Dieter broke on lap 102, Neerpasch immediately the roof of the CSL at Sebring, and it's Quester in our other team car." assigned the pair as co-drivers to the surviv- 'Heigh-Ho Silver' from there!" Stuck's pace, on that occasion as well as

104 AUGUST 2006 Blmmer others, was-and is-"a kind of puzzle- debut at the Louvre?) Posey's co-driver, speeding canvas on the Straight, ment? for Sam. Adds Neerpasch, "Hans was French art auctioneer Herd Poulain, had forever remembered at Circuit de la a natural talent, always fast, whether the car been instrumental in putting Neerpasch and and enjoyed by car lovers ever since. was good or not." the American Calder together on the deal, Posey saw this quality in his teammate; he which, according to Posey, Neerpasch recog- "You feel like you're in tried but couldn't match it. "The car," he says, nized immediately as first-class PR for BMW. a fighter plane.. ." "was moving around so darn much, and At Le Mans, Sam says Poulain proved Following Le Mans, Posey was back at Hans was really a master with that. He could "utterly clueless" behind the CSL's wheel- Daytona for the Paul Revere 250, a race anticipate it, and it didn't bother him that the so Posey did all the practice, then set out to begun a minute after midnight on the Fourth thing was twitching all over the road. It did qualify the media-touted "Art Car." Recalls of July. "I felt very comfortable," Sam says of bother me. I was okay in the medium and Sam, "I got this miracle lap right at midnight, driving after dark. "The banking at night is slower turns, but for fast ones I never could drafting a prototype down the straight-the lovely. You tip way up like that, and you feel hurl the car into the turn the way he did." most perfect lap I ever drove at Le Mans!" sort of like you're in a fighter plane. I partic- Burned-out brakes aflame at the finish, It was enough to place the Calder BMW ularly like night, and heat."

Hans won that Riverside &Hour, while Sam well forward on the 55-car start grid. Sam How did it go? "I don't remember how and Brian made it a huge 1-2 victory for BMW. laughs about it now. "Here's this CSL sitting we did-did Hans win?" Yes, Hans won. But "We were just really hauling ass," says Posey. there and all these prototypes-these 'ankle- sometimes it doesn't matter. Often just being At Lime Rock, Posey was fourth and at bitters1-are somewhere down there below there counts almost as much. Mid-Ohio second to A1 Holbert's winning us. I looked out from the seat and I couldn't As the season raced deeper into 1975's Porsche. The next IMSA race was Mosport, see any other cars they were so low! And it IMSA card, Sam recalls, "I did less and less and Neerpasch gave Sam the choice of doing had good straightaway speed, 185 plus, I well. I was terrible at Talladega, really humil- either the Canadian 100-miler, or the 24 think. So we were doing fine in the first stint. iated. It rained and I just couldn't take the Hours of Le Mans on the same weekend. If And then Poulain drove it, and we dropped car onto the banking at full speed-and he chose Le Mans, he'd drive a CSL painted way back. Then we had a half-shaft break." Hans could. I'd see him up ahead fighting by Alexander Calder, the abstract artist The Calder foray for Posey, Poulain and the slide at 180 or something, and I just Posey so much admired. third-man team driver Jean Guichet was, couldn't do it. And it was obvious at that after 78 laps, curtains. But what a sight while point that I wasn't going anywhere with the "The most perfect lap the car lasted! Calder, meanwhile, was upset team in terms of being part of its future. The I ever drove. .. " that so few in that mass of racing humanity only bright moment was the Daytona Finale, "That was going to be a kind of historic at Le Mans actually knew him. But the bold in November, when we swapped cars and I thing," Sam says, "and I wanted to be part primary colors used by "Sandy" Calder for was right in the hunt. That helped re-estab- of it." (Really, how many cars have a pre-race one of his final works made that CSL a lish my sense of myself as a good driver."

Bimmer AUGUST 2006 105 fessional race. Posey and Redman finished second to and Harald Grohs in a 935 K3 Porsche-both cars four laps ahead of anyone else in that 500-miler. "I look back and I think, boy, that was really something," Posey muses. "You wound UIJ in an awful lot df different situa- tions through those not-that-many years, and I'm kind of surprised that it all got fit- ted in somehow. What an awesome series of opportunities fell my way." One opportunity that many of us remem- ber is Posey's stint doing commentary at ABC sports, and the marvelous q;ips between Sam and David Hobbs on Speedvision over six seasons of Grand Prix racing-a broadcasting run that totaled myears. We've seen and admired his art and archi- tecture-he's designed homes for himself and Ellen in Connecticut and Florida, plus Skip Barber's place in Connecticut-read his words in Road & Track, watched documen- tary films he's written and hosted. His abstract silkscreens sell briskly through Sam Posey Design, and Playing with Trains, his book drawn from passions for model rail- roading and real locomotives, has brought him new success as an author along with a desire to write more. Today, the 62-year-old Posey is looking at fiction, with the shape of a novel alreadyin mind. Knowledge of his Parkinson's disease con- cerns us, which Sam sees as "very generous spirited." Asked how he is, he answers, "Up and down. It's a bit of an emotional roller coaster, which is the tough part," he says. The IMSA season was over, but Posey's Sam Posey today, wearlng hlo teamlssue BMW "You've got to get up in the morning and be BMW drives weren't. In the spring of 1976, he Motorspolt jacket from 1975. really excited and have a lot of energy, and was called to Europe by to race a that doesn't happen for me every day." Neerpasch-managed CSL in two World Remembrances of so many of the world's When the day is good and the track beck- Championship of Makes enduros. At Mugello great circuits live on with him. One such was ons, Lime ~ockisonly minutes from home. in March, paired with Harald Grohs, Sam in France, that final CSL race Sam did there Just recently he was there to drive a new scored tenth in a 6-Hour. In April, Hughes de in 1976. BMW M5 sedan. Fierlant joined Grohs and Posey at Vallelunga "I had been commissioned by Sports "It was prodigious!" he tells. "The car is for another quarter-day marathon, and the Illustrated to write about driving at night at so balanced andfast-you throw it at the trio finished second overall to a 935 Porsche Le Mans. So while I was going down the turns, ride over the curbs. With four people piloted by and . And Mulsanne Straight, I was making mental in the car, I was still only about two seconds in June, Sam's seventh of ten times at Le notes about it! Ellen [Griesedieck, Posey's off a good Corvette's time. But I would say Mans, he was again in a CSL with Grohs to wife of 28 years] was there with me, and we the car out-handles the 'Vette." finish tenth overall, fourth in class. went back immediately to the States, to New This is the Sam Posey we've known for so "I had a lot of down time between the York. I wrote the article in about forty-eight many years and keep on enjoying through a races," relates Sam of those months in hours, then hand-carried it over to SI and mind that probes the heart of motor racing Europe. "The museum in Munich had a fab- they ran it." and so many other facets of life. Looking ulous Kandinsky collection, the best in the around, it's hard to find anyone to beat him world. I made a lot of drawings when I was "Awesome opportunities for sheer content and style. there in a hotel, and enjoyed the solitude of fell my way..." Says John Bishop, "He's the articulate the experience. I saw Jochen from time to Sam Posey was home again, the CSL time preppy with great depth and sensitivity. He time-he fixed up a car for me to take up to over. But he continued on in other cars for never asked for any quarter, and never got the Niirburgring, a CSL with all the latest forty-six more races, in fact, making a career any." ~mblematicare Sam's own words stuff. I did quite a few laps there." For Sam, total of nearly three hundred. Paired with when setting up a time for our conversation: nothing can be better than to engage in art Brian Redman in a at Elkhart Lake "I'll be ready to do my thing, which is to and drive a race course. on August 23,1981, Posey drove hslast pro- blab away." 0

106 AUGUST 2006 Bimmer